Gear & Gadgets —

AMD planning new round of price cuts

AMD planning new round of price cuts to its higher-end processors. Chips …

Recent times have not been kind to AMD. While the CPU manufacturer gained significant ground and market share in 2005-2006, Intel's Core 2 Duo product line has surpassed AMD's Athlon 64 X2 series. Price wars between the two companies have also had a negative impact on AMD's total profitability, with the company's ASP (Average Selling Price) increasingly squeezed by Intel's product line.

The last major round of price cuts for AMD dropped the entire Athlon 64 X2 line below $200. According to X-bit labs, however, AMD is prepping another round of targeted price cuts for today. The plan includes most of AMD's mid-range to high-end products, with the 5000+, 5200+, 5600+, 6000+, and 6400+ all reportedly about to drop. While such cuts may indeed improve AMD's price/performance ratio relative to Intel across the higher end of AMD's product line, the positive impact of such a gain could easily be offset by the further depression of AMD's ASP's.